


Tailspin

by Araceli



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Dementia, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, some early/mid season 02 spoilers, swearing but no more or worse than what is in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 14:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araceli/pseuds/Araceli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harvey experiences, first hand, the consequences of eavesdropping.  Which never would have happened if Mike could just keep track of his phone (you know, like an adult) and shut doors all the way. However, his associate can do neither one of those things and now Harvey’s stuck between a rock and a hard place (read: caring).<br/>(Takes place somewhere early in Season 2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tailspin

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by many things: 1) Mike's love for his grandmother, 2) Mike's inability to keep track of his cellphone, and 3) my own grandmother's battle with dementia. 
> 
> I mean dementia in the broadest way possible. I'm not, by any means, an expert. I have no clinical knowledge. I only have my experience. Please don't treat what is portrayed in this fic as anything more than a fictional story. 
> 
> I'm stuck between leaving this as a one shot or expanding it. If anyone has an opinion, one way or the other, please let me know.
> 
> Also, I want to thank a dear friend of mine (who does not yet have an account) for proofreading and hand holding. She gave me the confidence to post this.

“Hey, Donna-“

“He’s not at his desk, and his cell goes straight to voicemail.”

Harvey groans. Straight to voicemail, in their experience, holds a lot of implications: either the phone is dead, misplaced, powered down, or the ringer is switched off. In one case, for whatever reason, calls just were not going through. Usually though, it’s one of the first four.

Sometimes trying to find Mike is a bit like trying to find Waldo, only ten times more frustrating. When Harvey tries to find Waldo it is usually to kill time at the Dentist, or he’s entertaining his niece. When Harvey tries to find Mike, however, it’s because they need to get shit done.

Over time, Mike acquired a large range of haunts within the walls of Pearson Hardman. This wouldn’t be a problem if the kid kept his cell phone on him. All it would take is a quick call, a short text, to touch base and that’d be that. Quick, efficient, and easy.

Except Mike doesn’t keep his phone on him. On a good day, Mike might have half an idea of where he maybe, might’ve seen it last; which makes Mike Ross and his numerous haunts a real problem for Harvey Spector. When this Senior Partner wishes to speak with his associate he has to lap around the whole building just looking for the kid.

Sometimes, if he’s lucky, Harvey can get Donna to do the leg work. Literally.

“Would you-”

“He’s your puppy. You lose him, you find him.”

He isn’t lucky very often.

If Mike is at, near, or within hearing distance of his desk phone then he will answer it. Well, most of the time. Louis has the associates trained to answer within the first three rings. It’s like Pavlov and his dogs, only with less saliva and more frantic dashes to cubicles.

The conditioning didn’t quite stick with Mike because the kid has a freaky ability to focus. He blocks out everything around him, including the shrill ring of a phone. So Louis had very little to work with, making what he did achieve that much more impressive. Maybe with some more work there might yet be hope for the lost cause of the cell phone.

Harvey first swings past Louis’ office, on the off chance the junior partner had the same excellent idea and is training Mike at this very moment. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if he were. Harvey might be indebted to the man for life, and might actually be willing to recognize that debt.

One quick look through the glass door shows no one but Louis, scowling at a Dictaphone.

Ah, well, it would have been a lost cause anyway.

Harvey sweeps past the associate’s cubical farm, just to make sure Mike really isn’t at his desk. It’s uncanny, that ability to completely ignore all auditory input, and part of what makes the kid exceptional so it’s permissible.

All Harvey finds is a suit jacket draped on the back of Mike’s chair that is sitting next to a desk ransacked by multicolored post-it notes, highlighters and chewed on pens.

Onward to Rachel’s office, who, as he finds out from another paralegal, is out for lunch.

The library is full of associates, but not one of them Harvey’s. 

The main records room is just plain empty, void of all human life.

This is the part of _Where’s Mike_ that gets really annoying; when he’s looked every place he can think of and still comes up with a goose egg. Maybe Harvey should force the kid to wear a red and white striped sweater. In the corporate world of suits, he’d stand right out.

Frustrated and ready to strangle his associate with one of those skinny ties, Harvey retraces his steps. Maybe Mike was in the Men’s Room and has since returned. Sometimes that’s the case.

Of course, this time, it isn’t.

In fifteen minutes Harvey’s circled all of Pearson Hardman and is back at Donna’s desk.

“Maybe we should get him one of those subcutaneous tracers. You know, the kind they put in dogs.”

Donna winces sympathetically. “Those are only accurate to the nearest city block. We already know he’s in the building.”

“Damn.” Getting that passed by HR probably wouldn’t be worth the trouble anyway. “Can you try his phones again?”

“No answer. Keep walking, Harvey.”

He does, searching down the lesser used hallways, peeking into supply closets all the while reminding himself that the kid possess a brilliant mind, and sometimes with brilliance come a little madness... even if the madness is solely on Harvey’s part.

“You’re not listening to me.”

Harvey stops, and then back peddles a few steps. That sounded like Mike, a flustered Mike. His voice is coming from behind the partially closed door of the room housing record’s over flow, the one filled with stacks of cardboard boxes and a lonely table situated in the middle.

There’s a gap between the door and the door jam. Not interested in butting into a situation if it doesn’t involve his associate, Harvey peers through the crack. Mike is sitting at that lonely table surrounded by white papers and manila folders. His head is bowed, a hand clutching a blue highlighter is fisted in his hair, the other pressing a phone to his ear.

Well, at least Harvey knows why the cell went straight to voicemail. The line is already in use.

“Please, just listen to me,” Mike pleads in a way Harvey’s never heard before; not when the kid was angling for a job he didn’t have the credentials for, and not when he was vouching for his best buddy.

This is more desperate, more heartbroken.

A weighted sense of dread sinks Harvey’s stomach. Intuition dictates that this isn’t half of a conversation he wants to hear.  If he’s right, this call is deeply personal, the type of thing that will give Harvey a window into the private world of Mike Ross.

A private world full of secrets a boss shouldn’t know about his employee. Better yet, secrets that Harvey doesn’t want the burden of knowing. If the average person has skeletons in their closet then Mike is the proverbial equivalent of a body snatcher.  Unsettling, maybe, but the kid was on his way toward becoming a drug runner before Harvey plucked him out of that life, so it follows.

Those aren’t exactly waters a person just dives into.

Except, here’s the thing, for every reason that points towards walking away and pretending like he never found Mike in the first place, there is an equally valid counter argument.  And the reasons for staying are marginally less damning than the reasons for leaving.

Because if this is anything like the whole Trevor debacle?  Mike might need Harvey to listen in on this one. The last time the kid sounded even half this frantic his ‘best buddy’ was being held for ransom… at gun point.

 The memory of that near brush with headline news (NY City Closer Shot, Along With Idiotic Associate) all but makes the decision. Harvey shifts out of sight, keeping an ear close to the gap as possible.

“Okay, I know you’re scared… No, I do. Please, just listen to me for a few minutes. Please. Okay? Just take a few deep breaths and I’ll explain. Yes, I will. I promise.”

Mike listens to his own advice and takes a breath himself. It’s shallow and shaky. “Gram, you’re in a nursing home. The year is 2012.”

Harvey closes his eyes. Damn it. He should have walked away.

“No. No, gram, I’m serious. Remember, we had dinner two weeks ago? I wanted to pick you up myself, but you wanted Donald, the shuttle driver, to bring you over? Yeah? And you play poker with the ladies down the hall? Mrs. Glover pockets an ace, but that’s okay because you count cards?” He’s asking everything like a question, an unspoken “don’t you remember” tacked on the end.  There’s an equally unspoken ‘please, please remember’ somewhere in their too.

And Harvey hates how easily he can pick up on these nuances, but his feet are absolutely rooted to the floor; some sort of sick need to finish what he’s started keeping him there. 

 “No, Gram, the accident… Gram that was years ago. I know, I know,” he asserts, sounding desperate to convey compassion. “It’s scary, and you feel like it just happened. I know, Gram. But I promise that I’m fine. I’m not eleven anymore. That was years ago, decades even.”

An associate, or maybe an intern, makes to enter the file room. She went unnoticed until just now. Harvey moves, just enough to get in her way, not even bothering to wonder where the hell she appeared from and why. She looks at him, about to open her mouth and say something. He cuts her off with a sharp jilt of his head, a very clear sign to beat it, come back later.

It’s the least he can do, a small price to pay for stepping across a line. If Harvey were in Mike’s shoes he’d kill to keep this from people, or more likely, bar the door. His associate doesn’t seem to have the same sense of self preservation. This is one damning weakness, a chink in the armor petty Harvard douches, like Kyle, would exploit in a heartbeat.

“I’m not there because I’m at work, remember? I work for Harvey at Pearson Hardman? I’ve told you about it. Yes, Harvey. Yes, Louis too. See you remember,” and the kid sounds choked with relief, but worried too.

Probably wondering when this will happen again, if she’ll spring back as quickly, or if they have started the spiraling decent.

And Harvey really needs to stop analyzing this.

“No, Gram. Don’t feel stupid. It’s okay. No, it really is okay.” Mike pauses to take a bracing breath, preparing, and that’s how Harvey knows whatever the kid says next is going to be a lie. “I’m not that busy.” The kid is absolutely swamped. The whole firm is up to its neck in this merger, and they’re only in the preliminaries.

 “What? I am not!” Mike says, sounding a little more like the sassy, smartass Harvey first met, but it’s a half-baked, watered down version that’s trying too hard. “Well if I am a liar then I guess my grandmother, the one who raised me by the way, is to blame.”

“No, gram.” And just like that, he’s back to serious. It’s not much of a transition. “No. Don’t be sorry. It’s okay. I really don’t mind. You’re not taking up too much of my time. No. I’m coming over tonight. Yes. Yes, I am.”

Mike chuckles, it’s weak. “Well, yeah, you could try, but security likes me. They think I’m charming. No, I’m coming over. I want to. Okay? Yes, I am sure. I love you, and I’ll see you tonight, alright? Can you put Nurse Sam back on? She wanted to speak to me before we hung up. No, Gram. It’s okay. It’s okay. I love you too.”

“Hey. Is she better? I mean, does…. Okay,” he exhales. “Okay. I know. Yes. I know.” Mike sighs the sigh of a man who’s being badgered into something he’s already resigned to. Harvey’s heard it a hundred times, from a hundred different people. “Yes. I’m coming over tonight. Thank you so much. Okay. Goodbye.”

Silence.

There are a few options on the table: Harvey can go in there right now and acknowledge that he listened in, he can go in there and pretend he heard nothing, or he can walk away. The possible consequences of each are endless and all exactly why Harvey doesn’t do caring.

Caring is messy. Caring has you stuck, standing outside of a room like an asshole, completely unsure of your next move.

It’s clear that he can’t walk away, whether he acknowledges the situation or not. The amount of prep work for this merger roughly equals that of one metric shit ton. Regardless of Grandma Ross’ mental health, the show has to go on. It’s time to either buck up or leave.

That’s the business, their business. If Mike can’t handle it now, he never will. It doesn’t get any easier.

Harvey braces himself, straightening his tie. He enters the room.

Mike doesn’t move. Both hands are in his hair, his head still bent over an open file. The phone sits to one side. If Harvey didn’t know any better, it looked like the kid was tired and simply trying to keep his forehead from slamming into the tabletop.

“There you are. I’ve been looking all over,” Harvey says neutrally. Before he would have sounded pissed, just to give the kid a hard time, but there’s a fine line between justifiable irritation and being a dick. That line definitely got smaller as he stood on the other side of that damn door.

Mike raises his head slowly. He looks at Harvey, eyes unfocused. Looking but not really seeing, that’s the phrase. 

“Hey, you alright?” Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask, by any standard, knowledge of his grandmother’s dementia notwithstanding, Mike doesn’t look like he’s rejoined reality quite yet.

The kid blinks owlishly. “Uh, yeah.” He turns his head back down to the files before him. “Yeah.” Mike clears his throat, and gives a quick shake of his head. “Apparently we’ve handled legal proceeding for Thompson before, but Pearson Hardman has worked with thousands of companies starting with the letter T, and more than a dozen Thompsons. So it’s slow going,” he sighs dejectedly, shifting files around, creating stacks.

Which is…surprising? Harvey half expected the kid to gush. It’s not like he comes off as a closed book, and he’s constantly pulling Harvey into his drama.   

But without an omission Harvey can do nothing but nod. “Alright, if you’re sure.” He pauses, purposefully giving the kid one last chance. There’s no bite. “Well bring what you have and come with me. We got work to do.”

Mike packs up in silence. If Harvey didn’t know something was wrong before, he would now.  Mike is a unique blend of highly irritating qualities. He has the energetic enthusiasm of a Labrador, more questions than a toddler, and the patience of a Labrador and a toddler combined.

Which is to say that Mike Ross asks questions relentlessly, and if not that: then he’s just running at the mouth. Talking and fidgeting and talking.

Right now Mike looks half dead, dissociated from the situation. 

And all Harvey can do is wait patiently, silently observing.

When Mike finally brushes past him, into the hallway, Harvey takes a quick eye sweep of the room. No papers on the floor, the desk cleared, save for the box Mike pulled down. No sense in putting it back, they’ll need it again soon anyway.  There is also a black cell phone sitting on the table, the sight of which has Harvey rolling his eyes.

He walks over, sweeps it up and pockets it.

The silence continues throughout the hallways. Mike trails after Harvey looking at the floor and chewing on the inside of his cheek.  The lack of chatter is… it’s actually unsettling.

“Donna,” Harvey says, turning to take the files from Mike. “Would you mind giving these to Louis? Tell him that’s what Mike was able to find before I gave him work that actually matters.”

She takes the folders, looking between Mike and Harvey in that disturbingly critical way of hers.

Harvey shakes his head slightly and ushers Mike into the safety of his office. It’s a stall tactic, because nothing can derail Donna, but the last thing they need at the moment is her painfully accurate dissection of their current situation.

Donna follows their every step with her eagle eyes.

Mike remains distant through the afternoon, but not distracted.  His mind is still just as brilliant, just as sharp, yet somehow his eyes keep up that looking, but not seeing quality. Maybe it’s just a stress tick, some coping mechanism. Whatever it is, it doesn’t impede progress.

However, it does serve as a sharp reminder of that phone call. And that at least a small part of the kid’s brain has got to be miles away, sitting in the room of a nursing home, wondering and worrying and wishing he could leave work.

They reach a natural stopping point around six. It’s too early to leave. Not with all this crap, boring busy work left before they can get into the crap, boring work that’s important. Harvey might be able to pull it off, because he’s senior partner and willing to scourge anyone who even thinks about questioning when he clocks out.

Associates, on the other hand, hold no such power. This merger is going to have those trapped in the cubical farm pulling many consecutive all-nighters for the foreseeable future.  Tonight included.

The second Harvey lets Mike out of this office Louis is going to bury the kid under a literal stack of files. If not Louis then someone else will. And if he’s fortunate to escape the notice of the upper ranks, peer pressure will chain Mike to his desk. Twenty-odd pairs of hateful eyes will do that to any employee.

The kid is going to be here until nine, at the earliest. Ten if luck is on his side, but more likely than not, he’s going to be here until it’s a quarter to twelve.

“Were you given anything else to finish?”

“Other than that assignment from Louis?” Mike asks, sounding wholly disinterested. His eyes never leaving the coffee table, just staring fixedly at papers filled with legalese. “No.”

Harvey squeezes a basketball between his hands, feeling the pimpled leather press into his palms.

There is no excuse to leave early. Harvey can’t just give Mike the evening, not without explaining what he overheard- kids’ too sharp to just let a favor like that go. But he can’t leave Mike here to rot, not when there’s an elderly, panicked woman waiting for her grandson so she can regain a firm grasp on reality.

Harvey’s heartless but not a complete bastard.

He squeezes the NBA signed ball harder. Next time, when he’s outside of a room and feels temptation to eavesdrop, he will walk away. Run, even. Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat; it tortured the thing under the crushing weight of responsibility.

“Okay,” he says, verdict made. “We’re going to your desk,” he instructs, backing the words with authority given to him for being Harvey Spector, badass lawyer. “You’re going to pack your things.  Say nothing to anyone. Clear?”

That should be a cue for Mike to start mocking the melodramatic marching orders. He should roll his eyes, ask if this is the part where no one sees him again before pulling an obscure movie quote out from nowhere.

Instead Mike sighs, shrugs his shoulders that roughly translates into “sure, whatever.”

They travel to Mike’s desk in silence. Harvey kills the minutes waiting for Mike to pack up by typing an email on his blackberry. Whenever an associate looks at Mike and beings to open their mouth Harvey shuts them up with a well-timed glare.

Because it’s none of their damn business, that’s why.

When his suit jacket is on and his leather satchel over his shoulder Mike looks to Harvey for further instruction. The senior partner merely jerks his head in the direction of the elevators. Harvey continues to compose on the blackberry all the way down to the lobby, only pocketing the device after they push pass the building’s glass front doors.

Despite dependency on Ray, summoning a cab doesn’t require practice. One pulls to their curb within seconds. Harvey opens the door and waves Mike in.

Mike blinks at him. “Harvey, what-”

“You’ve been distracted. Go home,” he orders.

The kid’s eyes dilate, widening to twice their circumference within half a second. “Harvey, look-”

Of course the kid would take it the wrong way. Harvey rolls his eyes. “This isn’t a punishment, Mike. We’re going to be neck deep in this merger for a week, maybe two. I need you at the top of your game.” God damn it, he adds in his head. Why can’t he just get in the cab, no questions asked, like a good peon? “So go home, take care of business. Come back tomorrow on time and with a clear head. Got it?”

Mike opens his mouth then shuts it. He shakes his head. “I… okay. Thank you.”

“Don’t make this into a big deal. If you’re off your game that means more work for me.” He pushes Mike into the cab. “Oh, and one more thing.” Harvey pulls out a black cell phone from his suit jacket and hands it over. “Keep better track of this thing, it’s embarrassing how you leave it around.”

The kid gives a small ghost of a smile. “I told you, it’s not the same thing.” He rolls his eyes. “Thanks Harvey.”

“Whatever. Remember, on time tomorrow.”

Harvey shuts the door.

The cab takes off.

It’s distinctly unsurprising when Jessica finds Harvey, not fifteen minutes later, in his office. He’s sitting on the leather couch, shifting through documents trying to get his head back into the game. The amount of subsidiaries involved is absolutely ridiculous, good God. 

“So,” she says from the doorway. “I see you cut the kid loose early today. Are you sure that was wise?”

It’s a whole new ball game now that she knows the exact nature of Mike’s employment; every weakness multiplied, every triumph minimized. As managing partner, and already viewing Mike as a liability, they need to be extra careful in how they approach Jessica with anything.

So Harvey shrugs, downplaying the entire situation. “If you want, you can be the one to drag him back.”

 “I am not going to waste time by explaining just how important this merger is to-“

Harvey snorts, “If we botch this because I let one associate go home early then we have a much bigger problem on our hands.”

Jessica stares, long and hard, perhaps trying to laser beam her judgment directly into his brain. Harvey continues to look at the sheet of paper in his hands. Usually maintaining eye contact is best, but in this case Harvey thought an air of nonchalance would be better. This situation is too unimportant to warrant his full attention.

 “Well, then you better hope this goes smoothly.”

She exits.

When he looks up Jessica is gone, out of site. In her place is Donna, swiveling in her chair the exact millisecond Harvey looks up.

Harvey needs coffee.

 


End file.
